Category Archives: tech tips

Why I may never (again) buy a Drobo

Drobo = Great Idea I love the idea of Drobo. A storage device that: protects your data, is easily upgradeable, and is dead simple to use. When it comes to the reality I find things less rosy. Before I continue this review let me make note that there seems to be a conspiracy theory out there about negative Drobo reviews. I do not know if the theory is correct or not but many negative reviews seem to be met with

CMOS battery dead, lost settings, Windows won’t boot!

Q. Yo J.D……so my hoss of a Dell laptop (the one with a 20″ screen) seems to have bit it again…It was left unplugged for a couple of days and I think that internal battery was drained. So it will try and start windows, but then it crashes and starts the reboot process over…I can get into set up…do you know how I can fix that boot problem? -John A. Howdy John. Yes, it sounds like your CMOS battery is

ZyXEL 35 default username and password

The ZyXEL 35’s default LAN IP address for accessing the web based ZyWALL interface is: 192.168.1.1 and the default password is: 1234 (no username is necessary) Make sure you access it from the LAN side and not the WAN side Ethernet port 🙂 NOTE: to reset these values to default, power on the XyXEL 35 and press and hold the physical RESET button for 30 seconds. At that time you will see all four LAN ports flash ORANGE and you

Exede Evolution

Intro and Thoughts: Exede has added a new offering in their satellite internet stable: Exede Evolution. This is the first satellite internet plan that I am aware of which offers high speeds and NO DATA CAP on PHOTOS and TEXT (web pages). That means you can view as many web pages and photos as you want. Downloads of programs or videos still count against the 5GB monthly cap, which can result in slowed speeds for non-text non-photos, but even if

Nexus 7 HDMI output adapter

If you want to connect your new Nexus 7 to a bigscreen LCD TV or monitor, the approriate adapters are now in stock and confirmed to work! Specifically, here is the Amazon product page for the TGOM SlimPort -> HDMI adapter that is confirmed to work with the Nexus 7 FHD 2013 model: TGOM SlimPort to HDMI for ASUS Google Nexus 7http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AT0WFEA?ie=UTF8&tag=pixensity-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00AT0WFEATechnical Details Connect ( SlimPort® or MyDP-enabled )mobile devices and tablets to any big screen. High Speed micro USB (male)

Determine if TRIM is supported and enabled on an SSD!

Today I was installing a Samsung 840 Pro 512GB SSD in a new server. Everything went smoothly, but I wanted to make sure that TRIM was actually working. This turned out to be slightly trickier than one might imagine! 😉 First Samsung’s SSD Magician Tool was of no use. CrystalDiskInfo reported that my SSD supported TRIM (which I already knew) but really gave no indication that Windows 7 and the SSD were working in concert to accomplish TRIMming. Nothing really

Bluetooth Keyboard Reviews: Logitech, Amazon, Anker (for iPad and Android)

I am in the middle of evaluating three new bluetooth keyboards: Logitech Tablet Keyboard for iPad, AmazonBasics Bluetooth Keyboard, and the Anker Ultra Slim Mini Bluetooth 3.0 Wireless Keyboard. The initial review will focus on using the keyboards with an iPad. A followup review will focus on Android. Conclusions to follow shortly, but here are photos to get things started 🙂 Initial packaging: Side views: Side-by-side Compared to an oldschool keyboard Amazon.com purchase links with free shipping Logitech Tablet Keyboard for iPad, iPad

Olympus FL-600R not working with XZ-1 [SOLVED]

Recently I tried using a nice Olympus FL600R flash on the hotshoe of my wife’s trusty XZ-1. Things were initially a no go, the camera would not fire the flash nor were any other commands/communication registered by the flash 🙁 Thankfully I got my FL600R to work with by downloading the latest XZ-1 firmware version: (link to OLYMPUS Digital Camera Updater) Screenshots of the firmware update process NOTE: requires the XZ-1’s USB cable to be connected to your computer) 🙂